The invention relates to transmissions for motor vehicles and more specifically relates to mechanisms for changing gears of automatic transmissions.
Present invention transmission are either manually shifted or have automatic shifting mechanisms typically actuated via the engine manifold vacuum. The prior art automatic shifting mechanisms depend on engine characteristics and are largely limited to vehicles having a single internal combustion engine; use of power plants other than internal combustion engines or use of multiple power plants with automatic transmissions is generally not practical. My invention solves these problems because it selects gears of an automatic transmission in response to the torque on a shaft following the transmission in the vehicle drive train. The shift points for automatic shifting of the transmission can be changed by replacing a few internal parts of a valve of my device or by adjusting a spring which determines torque levels for shift points.